


Heart To Heart

by Thia (Jennaria)



Category: Toy Soldiers (1991)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-10-20
Updated: 2004-10-20
Packaged: 2017-10-06 09:49:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/52355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jennaria/pseuds/Thia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Phil's just looking to get his homework done, maybe trade some bull with the guys.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Heart To Heart

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, this was going to be a fluffy, gossipy story. Except then it wasn't. Oops? Also, I suspect I rated this more harshly than needed. But dammit, it's not a G story, honest it's not!

Phil can hear them talking before he sees them, even here in the library where they're supposed to be quiet. Snuffy doesn't know when to shut up, even when someone smart would just bite his tongue already, and both Ric and Hank would rather talk than do homework. Not like he's up on any pedestal himself. If he really wanted to get his homework done, he'd be back in the room.

...maybe not. Billy and Joey are both in the room for a change, and while Joey's pretty quiet, Billy's just as willing to talk shit as any of the other guys. Just...not tonight. He wanted to get out.

He finds the guys sitting around one of the big tables, off to one side of the shelves. Ric's tapping numbers into a graphing calculator, math book open in front of him with a pencil lying across it, and a page or two of equations and hand-drawn graphs, half of them neatly crossed out with a big X, sitting next to it. Hank has a small stack of book-books sitting on the table in front of _him_, with titles like UNDERSTANDING 'THE SCARLET LETTER' and AN AUTHORITATIVE GUIDE TO NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE, which he's completely ignoring in favor of drawing up some kind of complicated chart. And Snuffy's tapping his pen on the textbook open in front of _him_, muttering under his breath in bad French before scribbling something illegible in the notebook in his lap.

Phil leans in to look over his shoulder. "Is that French or English?" he asks, pointing to the numbered sentences.

"French," Ric says, tossing his calculator onto the table.

Snuffy cocks his head and studies his own writing. "How the fuck would you know?"

"Because you've been repeating it aloud as you write it down," Hank says, abandoning his chart for the moment. "And it sure as fuck ain't Spanish."

"How would you know?" Snuffy repeats, still sounding pretty grumpy. "You don't speak Spanish either." He throws down his pen.

Phil goes around the table and pulls out the chair next to Ric, letting his backpack slide down off his shoulder onto the table with a thump. Ric pulls his calculator closer to him, though the backpack was nowhere near landing on it. "How much more do you have to do?"

"Math, Geo, and English."

"If you stay awake long enough." Hank flips a page in his notebook and frowns at whatever's written on it -- more of his chart, part of the paper he's supposed to be writing, Phil doesn't know and can't see from this angle.

"Hey, lights out at ten," he says, unzipping his backpack and taking out the books he needs, careful not to drop them on top of Ric's calculator. "Whatever I have done by then..."

"Doesn't mean you go to _sleep_ then, shithead," Ric says absently. He taps in another equation on his calculator, and makes a face at the result he gets.

"Don't think he has been," Snuffy says unexpectedly. "You look like shit warmed over. What's the matter, Billy and Joey keeping you up?"

Phil flips him off and sits down in his chair. "No more than they're keeping _you_ up. There hasn't been shit to do -- what the fuck?" Snuffy's cracking up. "Okay, what's the joke?"

Ric says, "What?" just as blankly as Phil feels, but Hank looks up from his notebook and says, "He's being an asshole, as usual."

"How?" says Ric, forehead still wrinkled up with confusion.

"Billy and Joey," Snuffy says, like that should explain everything. Phil waits. Snuffy shakes his head and throws his pen at Phil. "C'mon, you're their _roommate_. They're all over each other."

"You mean like they're together?" Ric suggests tentatively.

"No." Phil picks up Snuffy's pen, and thinks about throwing it back, making it like this is all the big joke Snuffy seems to think it is anyway. "I mean, no, they're not together."

Hank raises his eyebrows -- looks like an owl when he does that. "You know that for sure?"

"I'm their roommate," Phil says, rather stiffly. "I'm pretty sure I'd see something if there were something to be seen."

"Maybe they're just good at faking it," Snuffy says, leaning on his elbows.

"Maybe they just know when to drop the fucking subject, already."

It doesn't go away, though, not even when Phil opens up his math book and starts writing out the problems for his homework. Billy and Joey. Billy and Joey together. They were roommates for summer school this past summer, some kind of catch-up work, so Phil's felt like the extra, the add-on, since the beginning, even though he's known Joey longer than Billy has. He tries to think if there's anything particularly gay about Joey, and draws a blank. What the fuck makes a guy gay? What the fuck does he know about this anyway? Why did Snuffy go and bring it up?

"What do you have for number 4?" Ric leans over to look at his paper.

"Cosine 1.8."

"Oh."

"...the cinema at noon...Ils vont se réunir au cinema à midi..."

"No one's gonna be able to read that."

"Nobody's going to be able to read your paper, either."

"Joey's done with his," Phil volunteers, sketching another graph.

"And nobody else has even started." Hank flips through one of the books in front of him, far too quickly to actually be reading anything. No bookmarks or anything sticking out of it. Phil wonders who he's trying to fool.

"Billy might've," Ric says, sketching in the margins of his homework. Not a graph, this time, just a random doodle that might've been meant to be a soccer player. There's a round ball next to the figure, anyway, and it had two arms and two legs, so it's a pretty safe bet.

"Billy might've started any of his homework," Hank says, that dry not-quite-sarcasm like Snuffy taken down six degrees. "He's not here, so we can't ask him."

"Did he?"

It takes Phil a second to realize Ric actually asked him. He tries to remember, the room as it was when he left it fifteen minutes ago: Joey sitting at his desk, intently finishing the same math homework that Phil's just starting, while Billy tilts back in his chair, a book open on the table in front of him. A notebook nearby? He can't even bring to mind what book Billy was reading, or what exactly Billy said when Phil left for the library. He must've said something -- Billy's nearly as bad as Snuffy for always having something to say -- but Phil's drawing a blank. "Maybe," he says. "I can go back and find out, if you're all that curious."

"Nah," Snuffy says, still glowering at his illegible French. "Don't want to interrupt the lovebirds."

Phil wishes he had something in his hands that he could throw at Snuffy besides his pencil, which might not hit him and besides he'd just have to go retrieve it. "What's with you always on that?"

"I've mentioned it _twice_ \--"

"In ten minutes," Hank points out before Phil has to. "Is this a fantasy of yours, two roommates together?"

"Not with you, _roommate_," Snuffy snaps, and punches Hank in the arm.

"You mean they're gay?" Ric looks back and forth as if he thinks one of them could actually explain what Snuffy's talking about. "But...didn't Billy..." He gestures with both hands, maybe meant to indicate breasts, although Phil doesn't remember Billy talking about breasts either. Maybe Ric means the half-naked chick on their wall.

"Bisexual," Snuffy says. "Maybe they're bisexual." This gets him three looks of you've-got-to-be-kidding: Phil knows what bisexual means, but saying that Billy or Joey is bisexual still doesn't fit in his head. Snuffy shrugs elaborately at the looks. "Hey, what's wrong with being bisexual?"

"Nothing wrong," Phil says. "Nothing's wrong with being gay." He wants to say _now can we drop the subject and keep it dropped_, but if they tried it would feel like there's an elephant in the corner, looming over everything no matter what they actually talked about. It's going to be awkward enough going back to the room. _Hey, Phil, how was the library? Okay. We talked about whether you two were fucking, nothing special._

"Thanks," Snuffy says. "You're so gracious."

"Bite me," Phil tells him.

Silence again for a few minutes. Hank flips through another of the books, more slowly this time, and writes someone on the paper in front of him. Ric crosses out another graph. Phil types in an equation on his calculator and has to delete it because it's bullshit. Snuffy scribbles another sentence on his paper, then says abruptly, "You're not freaked out or anything, are you?"

"Freaked out by what?" Phil says.

"Finding out Billy and Joey are gay," Ric suggests, as if Phil didn't know that, thanks.

"Bisexual," Hank corrects him.

Jesus Christ. "Inasmuch as he's got no _reason_ for saying anything," Phil begins, then catches Snuffy hastily shutting his mouth. "...what? What reason?"

Snuffy shrugs uncomfortably. "I saw something."

"What?"

"I figured you knew!"

"_What_?" This time it's Hank, backing him up, although he sounds more exasperated, no slow creeping _oh shit what the fuck have you seen that I missed, what don't they trust me with_ like in Phil's head.

"Up in the bell tower a week ago," Snuffy says instantly, talking to the table rather than to any of them. "I don't think they even saw me." He looks up at Phil, just for a second. "They were just kissing, Jesus."

_Not the fucking point,_ Phil thinks, but as he opens his mouth to say it, Hank says, "And that's reason enough to give Phil a heart attack?"

"No," Phil says. "I'm fine. I'd like to do my homework, is all."

He manages to get through his math homework, but that's it -- when Ric gets up and says he's headed back to his room, Phil grabs the chance to get out of the library as well, and doesn't care what Hank or Snuffy might think. Especially not Snuffy. Ric doesn't say anything the entire walk back to the dorms, just waves bye when they reach the main building. He goes by one staircase, Phil goes by another.

Phil doesn't know what he expects to see when he opens the door. It looks the same as when he left -- well, no, a little different: Joey's sprawled on his bed, shirt open but still on, reading some magazine, while Billy's at his desk, writing quickly. Phil wonders if it's his paper or charts even more elaborate than what Hank was drawing. Billy's lips look red, but since he bites his lips sometimes when he's concentrating, that doesn't prove shit. For a second Phil believes Snuffy made everything up, just yanking his chain, yanking everyone's chain.

Billy looks up and says, "Hey. You're back early."

"Yeah," Phil says easily, going over to his bed. "Couldn't get anything done." He lets his bag slide down off his shoulder, glancing up at Joey to say something to him --

\--for a heartbeat, the angle's exactly right, and he can see the dark mark on Joey's collarbone, a mark that he'd swear in court wasn't there when he left, a mark that isn't a bruise --

"Let me guess," Joey says, looking up from his magazine. "Spitball contest."

"Nah, Hank wanted to copy off his English paper," Billy suggests. He crumples up a piece of paper and throws it across the room into Phil's trashcan.

"It was Ric, and math," Phil says, and throws a pen back at Billy because he doesn't have paper right there to crumple. There's still a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Not because they're gay: he really doesn't give a shit, and besides they wouldn't do anything stupid with him. Because he needs to talk with them, and he has no idea what to say. Maybe he can just...keep his eyes open, figure out some way of saying it without coming out and saying it. _We're supposed to be friends. No secrets. Not like this._ For now, he fakes the usual bullshit. That's one conversation he's not up to tonight.

-end-


End file.
